Iraqis go to the polls on Thursday to choose their first full-term parliament since Saddam Hussein was ousted from power in 2003 Following are some key facts about the vote: * Iraqis are electing 275 National Assembly members. * A total of 228 political entities and 21 coalitions have registered to contest the elections, more than double the 111 entities that ran in January's elections. * There are more than 6,000 polling stations across the country, although some centres may not open if tensions run particularly high. * Voting is being organised by the Independent Electoral Commission with help from the United Nations. * Iraq is divided into 18 provinces. Of 275 parliamentary seats, 230 have been split between the provinces on a basis of proportional representation. Baghdad has the largest number of seats. * An additional 45 seats will be allocated to parties that did not win seats at governorate level but attained a certain threshold. Any remaining seats will be allocated to those entities that won the highest votes. * Overseas voting has been organised in 15 countries: Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States on Tuesday. * Voting for hospital patients, security forces and detainees took place on Monday. * More than 70,000 independent observers have been accredited to monitor the elections, including 800 foreign monitors. * The number of Iraqis eligible to vote is 15,544,428, including around four million in Baghdad. The minimum voting age is 18. * Counting will be done in the polling centres with members of different groups and political parties allowed to observe to ensure transparency. * Final results are expected at the earliest by the end of December. The first task of MPs will be to appoint, by a two-thirds majority, one president and two vice-presidents. * The Presidency Council will then have 15 days to name a prime minister, who will form a cabinet to be put to parliament for approval. * Vehicle traffic is banned on polling day and voters are expected to get to polling stations on foot. Civilians will be banned from carrying weapons. Main parties running in Iraq's elections Competing in the elections are more than 225 political entities with 22 electoral lists, each identified by a three-digit number. However, it is expected that the National Assembly will be dominated by a handful of alliances, mostly formed along ethnic and sectarian lines. The main coalition is the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a coalition of Shia Islamist parties, including Abdel-Aziz Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's Al-Dawa Party. With 140 of the 275 seats, the UIA dominates the current assembly, though most observers expect its representation to fall in the face of new competition with other coalitions, especially the Sunnis. The next largest group, the Kurdish Alliance, consists mostly of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), age-old rivals who finally put aside their differences by dividing the spoils. Massoud Barzani of the KDP is president of the Kurdish autonomous region while Jalal Talabani of the PUK has taken the presidency of the country. The alliance, which holds 76 assembly seats at present, recently lost the Kurdish Islamic Union, which will now run on its own. Another large coalition is the National Accord Front, a grouping of three Sunni parties hoping to take advantage of the newfound interest in the political process by the community that was dominant under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi Islamic Party headed by Tariq Al-Hashimi, the Conference of the People of Iraq (CPI) of Adnan Al-Dulaimi and the Iraqi National Dialogue (IND) of Khalaf Al-Alyani should be able to expand on the 20 seats that currently comprise the Sunni portion of the assembly. This election will also witness former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shia, looking to make a political comeback after his defeat in January at the hands of the religious Shias and Kurds. Allawi's Iraqi National List includes leftists, communists, Sunni elder statesman Adnan Pachachi, and the former president Ghazi al-Yawar, also a Sunni. The party has 40 seats, but is likely to gain more seats if it attracts more Shias and Sunnis to its non- sectarian list. Ahmed Chalabi's new National Conference, which used to be allied with religious Shias, now consists of a few small factions, including monarchists and the Iraqi National Congress, along with the ministers of education and justice. Once tipped by the Pentagon to lead the new Iraq, Chalabi fell out of favour with the United States over his ties with Iran. There are indications, though, that Washington is becoming interested in him once again. Chalabi, currently deputy prime minister, is basing his campaign on what he says are the failures of the current transitional government, promising to tackle the problems bedevilling the country.
